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education meaning

Education is the term used to refer to learning by which knowledge, belief and habits as well as skills and values of one group of people is passed to another, from generation to generation through various aspects such as discussion, storytelling, teaching and training. It not only denotes the ‘formal transmission’ through these factors to a group of people but also ‘informal transmission’ from one person to another.

It is the system where learning takes place under the guidance of teachers and tutors; in the same way, those who teach can also educate themselves further. This is called ‘autodidactic learning’.

Education can also be used to denote ‘the knowledge gained from an experience that has an impacted effect on a person’s beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions’.

The word ‘education’ has its origin from the Latin word ‘educatio’ used to refer to ‘a bringing up’. Broadly, ‘educo’ relates to the meaning “I train, I educate”; ‘educo’ itself is the combination of ‘e’ (from) and ‘duco’ (I conduct).

The ‘right to education’ is a fundamental right accorded to the citizens of many governments worldwide. The United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights endorses and recognizes the right to education for all the citizens. In most countries, education is compulsory for children up to a certain age. In developed and developing countries, formal education is that where children go to school to learn from qualified and skilled teachers. More often these days, school attendance is not always compulsory and that leads many parents to ‘home school’ or ‘home tutor’ their children with the assistance of either private teachers or through methods involving e-learning, which is the use of electronic material and technology to learn. This is a kind of informal learning.

The ‘art and science’ of education, which translates into ‘how best to teach’ is called Pedagogy. At school level, education is categorized into stages like preschool, primary, secondary, higher or tertiary etc while beyond school higher education is slotted into college and university and/or apprenticeship.

History of Education

In ancient history, there is the reference of the ‘Academy’ founded by Plato in Athens before 300 BC. The city of Alexandria, founded in 330 BC surpassed Athens as the ‘cradle of intellect’ in ancient Greece. The Library of Alexandria, a historical monument contained translations of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek under the patronage of mathematicians and astronomers like Euclid and Herophilus. The supremacy of the earliest European civilizations came to an end when the Roman Empire declined in 476 AD.

The focus then shifted eastward with the Chinese philosopher-scholar Confucius whose outlook on education and reforms influenced many south-east Asian nations like Korea, Japan and Vietnam. His teachings and discussions were recorded by his followers and his philosophies continue to exert influence to this day in many parts of Asia. In India, for instance, the gurukul tradition of teaching and learning where a teacher or trainer taught knowledge and skills to his ‘wards’ by living and training with the master in a community set up has continued in some form to this day at institutes and schools where fine arts, music and dance forms are taught.

In various regions around the world, adults of one generation trained the young of the following one in the knowledge, values and skills through oral teaching and through imitation prior to the birth of literary societies and skill sets. As cultures flourished, a system of formal education appeared to impart knowledge and skills; there is evidence of the presence of schools in Egypt in ancient days.

The Early Middle Ages saw the rise of the Catholic Church as the preserver of literary teaching and skills; many medieval universities of Christendom across Europe encourage freedom of thought, speech and enquiry producing a vast number of fine philosophers and scholars. Among the oldest continually operating universities of Europe, the University of Bologne is considered the first and the finest.

With the advent of the printing press in its earliest form, literary works of art and education flourished and spread more quickly through the continents. Missionaries and scholars, particularly the Jesuits played a significant role in the transmission of knowledge from Europe to Asia.

The quality of life depends on the quality of who you are. What you actually become. It all boils down to how morally good and ethical a person is. So the question is how do we make every one become a good moral person? Since ancient times we recognize the importance of teaching moral values. We teach it the same way we teach math and science by providing the knowledge of good and bad. One very important factor that the world of education has still not completely woken up to, in spite of all these thousands of years of research, is that as there are two kinds of intelligences – regular and emotional – both require a different set of rules for education. Emotional intelligence education alters the actual physical infrastructure of the brain. Emotional intelligence education starts from the womb. And continues through hugs and kisses and a nurturing childhood environment. By the time the child is 6 years old the moral character traits are well set for the rest of the person’s life.

So to really insure moral education we must learn how to educate the individual at the fetus and the child stage. Thus we must put together templates and manuals for future parents, current pregnant ones and those with little kids.

Please consider the following:

There was a king who was very troubled because his people were very poor. He did not know what to do. He heard of this kingdom where people were very prosperous and lived in mansions and even marble palaces. So he went to the king of this place and asked him how they were able to live like this. The king told him that it was very simple he just passed a building code which everyone in his kingdom had to follow. So our king came back and passed a law that everyone must build a marble palace!

Now in his kingdom most could afford a straw hut, others could afford a log cabin. Still others could afford a cement mansion and a few could afford a marble palace. So the kings law went into effect and nothing changed. Just a few marble palaces came up. Except for the select few the rest were incapable of building marble palaces.

It is the same when it comes to morality. We have moral laws and we expect everyone to follow them. We spend billions of dollars on crime prevention and containment yet nothing changes.

The only way to change and reduce crime is by changing the physical quality of the brain that generates the moral compass of the individual. Thus ethics education means not just telling people what is good and what is bad. It is about creating the right moral infrastructure generating brain.

The brain has four basic levels as follows:

1) Premature brain – (I have quantified it as -2) Those stuck on this level have the moral values of a snake. In their mind they are everything and everyone else is nothing. They are above the law and everyone else is below the law. No amount of moral education is going to change them. Punishment is the only deterrence and even this they often ignore. Their physically brain is too far morally gone.

2) Immature brain – (I have quantified it as -1). Those stuck on this level are corrupt. In their mind they deserve the best, by hook or by crook. Current ethics education will not change them much as their moral values are generated by an entrenched selfishness producing brain infrastructure. We have to wake up to the fact that we will have to change this brain infrastructure.

3) Mature brain – (I have quantified it as +1). Those stuck at this level are driven by a trophy self image as in ‘I am the best’. This is the group that is the easiest to change. But not by the current way of moral education which practically amounts to pleading with people to do good. The trophy self image will have to be gotten rid of and replaced with a selfless self.

4) Super mature brain – (I have quantified it as +2). The brain at this developed level already generates a selfless self so moral education is not required for this group.

Just like a man with the resources of building a log cabin cannot become a marble palace owner; a man with a -2, -1. or even +1 brain can ever become morally +2. No amount of current ethics education can make a -2 brain generate a +2 brain power. The only way real moral values can take root is by making the brain +2. And this requires brain therapy more than anything else. It requires brain changing education. The sooner we wake up to this the faster we will create a morally healthy society. Current moral education amounts to like our local pastor telling us to live virtuous lives. We hear it and applaud it and then go back to our old ways.

Notice how without exception all books on self help talk of ‘7/9 steps. There is just one goal/step as far as self help is concerned – become wise. Thus ethics education is more like self transformation education. It is more precisely about making ones self +2! It is more in line with self help education. Then again not like the current self help education. My main field of work is wisdom. And as philosophy is considered the love of wisdom which means one of the main goals of philosophy is to try to find out what is wisdom. Most experts on wisdom are still stuck where they define wisdom by its attributes and are still struggling to define wisdom.

As the wisdom potential is there in every brain just like blood and as absence of wisdom means presence of ignorance (where actually there is a mixture of the two) so every life is affected by lack of wisdom, from individual to group to country, so the stakes are very high. In fact much of the present mess in the world today from the economic crisis to the problems of war can all be traced to lack of wisdom. So if I can wake up main stream education/science to the correct path to ethics education, I think my work will be done.

Philosophy, religion and science in my view are much more connected then we realize! I have found that at the highest stage of the mind/brain development the quality of the character traits (as defined by religion, philosophy and science) of every person are all one and the same!!! Religion wants you to be altruistic, philosophy wants you to be wise/altruistic and science/education wants you to be emotionally super mature which is the same! So wisdom is the common thread in all of them. Thus we need philosophers, religious leaders and scientists/educationists all working together to create ethics education that transforms the brain to +2.

A few lucky individuals living in the credit card debt box will accidentally educate themselves as they struggle to find a way out of financial poverty. Discovering money secrets known only to the rich will make torrents of cash flow in their direction. The very card that was their ball and chain is actually the key to total financial freedom.

It is strange indeed that a small piece of plastic can bring such misery and financial slavery into one’s life when all that’s needed is knowledge of how the system works for the rich. Their system for taking your money is based on fraud, deception and operating outside the legal system. So, all that’s needed to make their river of cash run in your direction is truth and the American legal system.

Financial education is painful but if you ever hope to think outside the box then you must experience the secrets the banks and Wall Street insiders use against you. At first you will resist, then become sickened and finally experience outrage as you learn the truth. Having been warned of the consequences of your actions, use the search term “the gig is up – money, the Federal Reserve and you” if you choose to continue.

Outrageous isn’t it? Using money created from thin air to “loan” to you without actually loaning you any money or extending credit is a complicated scheme but it is easily ripped apart and you’ll have money being dumped on you when you expose the truth and use the laws of our land to expose them as the lawless thieves they are.

While you’re on a roll, use the search term “FTC debt video” to see the government cartoon version of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act which describes your legal rights about any debt. You need not pay what you do not owe and having this knowledge will put you totally outside the box!

You’ll need a pen, paper and a digital voice recorder to legally eliminate the debt and get the river of money flowing in your direction. By far debt collector phone calls are the easiest way to fast cash. You saw on the government video collectors walk very tight rope on what they can and cannot say to you over the phone.

A great way to get the debt collector’s violating mouth opened up is to tell him you won the lottery and are going to pay everyone you owe so you’re recording this call and need all the payment information so you can send the cash. You will probably be able to hear him slobbering at the thoughts of stealing your money. After you get all the information about him and his company say something like you’re just a thief and I’m not going to pay you a penny! With every violation he will be spitting out $1000! Hope that you get really a foulmouthed collector and the sky is the limit!

Use search terms like “man wins $1.5 million from collector” or “woman sues collector wins $8.1 million” to see exactly how easy it get rich from their deceptive system. Answering written collection notices with a demand for “proof of debt” returned to the collector by registered mail with return receipt will only get you the alleged amount of debt you owe so be sure every card you have is maxed out before you stop paying the account.

While others smother in the box of credit card debt, you have seen the educational light which will guide you to financial freedom. Share your new knowledge with your friends to help them escape the box and share the wealth!